Identification of an individual or verifying whether an individual is the person they claim to be is a common problem faced by individuals, businesses, and governments. Sophisticated personal identification methods and systems are often used for security in sensitive government and commercial installations. However, personal identification has potential application wherever a person's identity needs to be identified or verified, such as, for example, the identification of an offender from trace prints recovered at crime scenes or in the control of access to physical locations, such as airports, industrial locations, and in the home. It also has potential application in the control of access to computing and data management equipment and in banking or commercial transactions.
Biometric data is used for personal identification. Biometrics is the study of biological or behavioral phenomena. In the area of personal identification, a chosen biometric characteristic or feature is used to identify or verify a person's identity. In general, biometric identifiers or features are the distinctive, measurable characteristics used to identify and/or describe individuals. Biometric identification is particularly useful as a method of identification because many personal characteristics are substantially unique to each person and are difficult to replicate. Further, the recording and analysis of biometric data can be automated, thereby allowing use of computer controlled electronics and digital recording techniques.
Many types of biometric features are used as identifiers, including, for example, a fingerprint, a palm print, an iris scan, a tattoo image, a facial image, a voice recording, DNA, a vein, and/or an ear image. The following will be discussed largely with respect to fingerprints (including latent prints), but the disclosure is meant to include other types of biometric data embodiments as well.